MEDITATIONS On The Holy Scriptures of Orthodoxy

In a sermon concerning Scripture, St. John Chrysostom (+407) addressed his flock: “I exhort you, and I will not cease to exhort you to pay heed not only to what is said here, but when you are home also you should occupy yourselves attentively with the reading of Holy Scripture. Let no one say to me such cold words – worthy of judgment – as these: ‘I am occupied with a trial, I have obligations in the city, I have a wife, I have to feed my children, and it is not my duty to read the Scripture but the duty of those who have renounced everything.’ What are you saying?! That it is not your duty to read Scripture because you are distracted by innumerable cares? On the contrary, it is your duty more than those others, more than the monks; they do not have such need of help as do you who live in the midst of such cares. You need treatment all the more, because you are constantly under such blows and are wounded so often. The reading of Scripture is a great defense against sin. Ignorance of the Scripture is a great misfortune, a great abyss. Not to know anything from the word of God is a disaster. This is what has given rise to heresies, to immorality; it has turned everything upside down.” Indeed, it once was an extremely difficult task! Since the printing press had not yet been invented, all books were copied by scribes. Scribes were in demand for recording legal and business matters, correspondence, and copying religious as well as literary books. Literacy of the general masses was relatively high in the eastern Mediterranean basin and reading matter, though very expensive, was in great demand. For this reason, the first religious library with access to the public was in Jerusalem at 250 AD and this was soon followed by imperial libraries in Constantinople, Antioch and other major cities of the empire. Accessibility was only one of the problems facing the reader. Books and other documents were written on either parchment (specially treated animal skin), which was very expensive, or the less expensive Egyptian papyrus. It was not unusual for documents or books to be erased so that the parchment could be reused (the process is called “palimpsest”). This led to the loss of many valuable ancient writings. Conversely it also led to the preservation of some ancient documents or books when discovered centuries later to lie hidden beneath some “more recent” writings. Modern technological methods exist which reveal these hidden treasures to our sight. Writing by the scribes, of course, was done with pen and ink. Portable writing desks were in use by the scribes. These contained chambers for an inkpot and a supply of reed pens and paper. Early writing was done using uncial characters, i.e. capital letters each of which usually required from two to five strokes of the pen. These made for very clear reading but were very laborious in the doing. By the end of the second century cursive characters were being developed, smaller than uncials, more like our handwriting, called minuscule. Their advantage was that they could be executed rapidly with only one or two movements of the pen. Though less easy to read, they saved on writing materials and time. Letters of a word were written separately, not joined together. Publishers of that time were prosperous people, as they are today. The publisher’s work places of the Hellenistic area consisted of groupings of up to seventy scribes in a room, while another read aloud from the document being copied. Their writings were sometimes filled with errors in their effort to keep up with the reader. The reader encountered additional difficulties in text presentation. There was no space between words, no capitals, no separation of sentences, no indication of paragraphs, and no punctuation or other diacritical marks - only a stream of letters which, when they reached the end of the sheet would go on to the next line without showing any hyphenation. Frequently the pages were not numbered and there was no indication as to what book or document they represented. The reader had to determine when a word, a phrase, or a sentence was completed. Questions were shown indirectly by using words such as “he then asked”, and responses like “he answered” (there are many examples of this in the Scriptures). This was the state of literary definition until the eighth century AD when the first punctuation mark was introduced. It was in the Greek language, the question mark, shown by the semicolon [ ; ] which is in use to this day. Imagine reading the Scriptures under these conditions. For example: νομικοςτιςπροσηλθετωιησουπειραζωναυτονκαιλεγωνδιδασκαλεποιαεντολημεγαληεντωνομωο δειησουςειπεναθτωαγπησεισκυριοντονθεονσουενολητηκαρδιασουκαιενολητηψυχησουκαιενολυτιδιανοιασου Though easier in English, because of less complex inflection, it remains inconvenient. alawyeraskedhimaquestiontotesthimteacherwhichisthegreatercommandmentinthelawandhes aidtohimyoushalllovethelordyourgodwithallyourheartandwithallyoursoulandwithallyourmind